Tuesday, February 10, 2009

I feel like quoting John Denver

I am going to Europe in 2 days. The family and I are going on one of those tours that you always feel like you'll never do when you go to Europe because you're so much cooler and more culturally aware than those "tourists." Despite that, I am taking a tour. We start in Rome, go to Venice and the Italian lake district, go to Lucerne, travel to Paris, and finish in London. I think it has the potential to be a really great experience, but I'm a little apprehensive. I've never been on a trip of this magnitude before. The biggest one I've been on was when we worked the area from D.C. to New York over the course of about a week. In addition, I hope that the language barrier doesn't become a problem. While we'll be with the group for a lot of the time under the charge of the tour director, there's going to definitely be some time where we'll be able to roam free. I tried to get some students to give me a little French, but I can't remember what I learned. Of course, it probably didn't help that I asked them to teach me how to say, "Your face looks like a cow." I already know it in Japanese, so I was looking to add one more to the repertoire. No matter.

That said, I'll be gone until right after the Oscars. I am incredibly disappointed that I'll be missing the broadcast this year. I would watch them from London, but they'll be on at something like 4 in the morning there. While I would go for it if it was up to me, I'm with 4 other people in close quarters, and they probably wouldn't appreciate me huddled in front of the television keeping them awake. I'm not sure how much internet access I'll have, but I will do my best to get my official predictions done before the broadcast. It's looking kind of anticlimactic this year though, to be honest.